


one more little mistake

by shatteredhourglass



Series: Winterhawk Bingo Again [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Is Horny For Clint Barton, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Wears Glasses, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: “You wear glasses?”“No,” Clint says without looking up at him.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Winterhawk Bingo Again [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963777
Comments: 65
Kudos: 330
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo Round Two





	one more little mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the vacation! I'm writing a very long fic and it has taken up all my time, but I'm taking a break to get some bingo squares done. Enjoy!

“Fucking Steve,” Bucky starts, the minute he walks into the apartment. He doesn’t stop in front of the figure leaning on the counter, moving into the space between the back of the sofa and the kitchen so he can pace. “He did it _again_. I swear he thinks I’m ten years old, or - or some kind of liability, like I’m completely unable to do anything by myself. God, I want to kill him.”

“No you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” he agrees reluctantly. “But I wish he’d realize that I’m a real person _now_ , ‘cause it sure as hell doesn’t feel like he knows sometimes. I wasn’t even _doing_ anything, I was just- _ugh_.”

“Maybe it’d help if you told Steve all this instead of breaking into my home every night to complain.”

“He doesn’t listen, you know that,” Bucky says. “Anyway, you’re one to talk. I know you’ve got keys to my place hidden in your sock drawer.”

“And I never have to use them because you’re always _here_ ,” comes the reply. “There’s beers in the fridge. Order some Chinese takeout while I finish this.”

Bucky throws his hands up in the air, glancing briefly at the person across from him. “Do you even _care_?”

“Sure I do. It’s why I’m not making you go home right now.”

Bucky stops pacing abruptly.

Turns around.

“You wear glasses?”

“No,” Clint says without looking up at him.

The denial doesn’t really erase the frames delicately perched on the end of his nose. They’re thin, black-and-silver-framed things that Bucky should’ve spotted immediately against the paler tones of Clint’s skin and hair. There’s something about them makes Clint look more - dignified? No, that’d be impossible, he’s still as dorky as ever - but Bucky’s having trouble looking away from his face now.

“I-” he says, doesn’t know how to finish.

Clint finally glances up then, the vivid blue of his irises shielded under a layer of glass, and something about it makes Bucky’s brain grind to a halt.

“How long have you had those?”

“Look, it’s not a big deal,” Clint says, a defensive edge creeping into his voice. “It’s not affecting how good I am in the field. I only wear them when I’m doing paperwork.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Bucky says, but it’s clear that Clint doesn’t believe him. He’d been too caught up in the latest drama with Steve and he hadn’t even noticed them at first but-

“Not all of us can be supersoldiers,” Clint grumbles, pushing the frames up his nose.

Bucky feels his insides do a hot flip-flop of arousal and he thinks _oh, fuck_.

It’s stupid.

Glasses aren’t even that sexy.

Bucky still wakes up in the middle of the night with his skin prickling from sweat and heat, legs tangled in the sheets and the image of Clint looking down at him through his glasses still playing in his head. (He gets off on it too, fingers tight on his dick as he pictures what it’d be like to be on his knees, Clint’s hand in his hair and those goddamn _stupid_ glasses on his face.)

“Put these on,” he orders.

“I don’t know what the hell goes on in that brain of yours and I don’t like it, Barnes,” Sam responds. He takes the sunglasses from Bucky anyway, with the dark lenses popped out of them so they’re only frames, and puts them on his face before he goes back to trying to take a nap.

Bucky squints.

Tips his head to the side.

The silence drags on for a moment as Bucky stares at Sam’s face thoughtfully - too long for Sam, evidently, because it doesn’t last long before he opens his mouth again.

“What are we doing?”

“I don’t want to sleep with you,” Bucky says.

“Don’t lie to yourself like that, baby,” Sam answers smoothly, blinking his eyes open again. “Seriously. Steve asked me to keep an eye out for you doing weird shit and this fits the bill.”

“You’re not telling Steve shit,” Bucky retorts.

He snatches the sunglasses back and walks off to find Natasha.

“I’m not running a shelter here,” is the first thing she says to him when she opens the door, hair tied back in a messy updo.

“I don’t know what that means,” Bucky responds.

Natasha rolls her eyes and steps aside to let him into the room. There’s a rock song playing turned down low and her heavy black curtains are pulled back to let the afternoon light stream in. She’s dressed in sweatpants and there’s a faded copy of something called _Night World_ in her hand. He blinks at the champagne flutes on her counter.

“Am I… interrupting something?”

“We were supposed to be having book club,” Natasha says, locking the door behind him. “Then Steve got called out to a mission and Yelena decided she had better things to do, so I’ve been left with the one person who didn’t even _try_ to read the book.”

“Hey,” a voice from the direction of the couch replies indignantly. Bucky freezes. “I didn’t even want to join your book club, you bullied me into it.”

“Don’t whine,” Natasha says. “James? Alcohol?”

“Sure,” Bucky answers distractedly.

“What did you come here for, by the way?”

“It - uh, nevermind. Doesn’t matter.”

“As you wish,” Natasha says, waves in the other direction. “Go. Sit.”

Bucky refrains from putting his face in his hands. He doesn’t really have a choice, does he? If he leaves now there’ll be questions. Instead he drags his feet over to Natasha’s armchair and flops down in it, mentally steeling himself for what comes next.

When he glances at the couch though, it’s to see Clint bare-faced apart from the golden scruff on his jaw and a single Hulk-themed band-aid on his cheek. He’s sprawled out enough to take up most of the couch, another copy of the book held between two fingers and a thumb.

No glasses.

Bucky definitely isn’t disappointed.

“Heya, Buck,” Clint says. “You want to take my place in book club?”

“Not particularly,” Bucky answers, taking the glass Natasha passes to him.

“I thought you’d say that,” he replies, sounding resigned.

“It’s not a bad book, you big baby,” Natasha says. She prods Bucky in the shoulder. “Move. This is my chair.”

“Technically they’re all your chairs,” Bucky reasons, mostly because his other choices are to sit next to Clint or sit on the floor. He’s got to put up at least a mild protest, see if she’ll take pity on him for once.

Natasha gives him a _look_.

He sighs and gets up.

Clint shifts his legs obligingly when Bucky moves over, giving him enough space to sit before he tucks his socked toes under Bucky’s thighs. The socks are labeled with days of the week, although one is a Friday and one is a Monday, and Bucky’s fairly sure that today is Tuesday.

“What chapter are you up to?”

“I don’t know,” Clint says. “The middle one?”

“There’s more than three chapters, Clint,” Natasha says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint replies, turning the page. “I’m doing my best here. Stop nagging me.”

“I can see this is going to be a lost cause,” Natasha says.

There’s a beep and she pulls her phone out of her pocket, scanning the words on the screen. Whatever it is must be interesting because it’s enough to make her set down the wine on the coffee table with the book and get to her feet.

“I’ll be back,” she says, pointing a finger at Clint. “Read the book.”

And then she leaves them alone.

Great.

Bucky downs the whole glass of wine in one swallow and very carefully does not think about anything.

Thing is, he’s always been a little gone for Clint - it’s been simmering under everything else ever since he’d seen Hawkeye in action for the first time, dangerous and quirky and overconfident to the point of narcissism (it’s taken him a few years to figure out that last one is all bravado and no substance.) Bucky’s crush on Clint hasn’t managed to ruin their friendship yet.

He can keep this weird kink for Clint with glasses under wraps.

He doesn’t need to make it weird.

It’s fine.

Bucky’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t look at Clint until he hears a tiny huff of frustration. When he glances up it’s to see Clint holding the book so close that his nose is nearly touching the page, a grimace on his lips. As Bucky watches, he pulls it back until he’s looking at it with his arm fully extended so it’s far away.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Clint says immediately, putting the book back to a normal distance from his face. He’s still grimacing though, and Bucky can see he’s just staring at the page rather than reading it.

A light comes on in his brain. “Can you see the words?”

“I’m fine,” Clint says. “It’s just boring. I already sat through Nat’s Vampire Diaries phase, and this feels like round two. At least this one doesn’t have eight seasons of TV to watch as well.”

He’s lying.

“You’re not wearing the- ?”

“It’s fine, Bucky,” Clint says, an edge to his voice this time. “My eyesight is _fine_. I can see the book. I can see you. I can see everything. You can just forget what you saw the other day, alright?”

Something about the way he says that makes alarm bells ring in Bucky’s head. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Clint says.

Bucky’s getting worried now.

It must show on his face because Clint takes one look and then sighs, balancing the book upside-down on the armrest. “I’m not - it doesn’t matter, because you guys don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“I’m getting old,” Clint replies, something brittle in the way his lips quirk upwards. “Not like, nursing home old, but. I can’t read things close-up. I found a grey hair the other day. My knees always hurt even when I’m not doing ridiculous superhero things.”

Bucky blinks at him.

“You guys - you’re never going to change,” Clint says. “You get to stay pretty and perfect forever, and I just… don’t. I’m going to get old and I’m going to get more and more of a problem for the team until they get rid of me. But I don’t - I don’t want it to happen _now,_ because of this.”

Jesus, that’s heavy. Bucky hadn’t even thought about it before - what does the weight of being the only truly _human_ Avenger feel like?

“I need you to not tell anyone about the glasses,” Clint says. “Please, Buck. Even if you think I’m going to be a liability, you need to just-”

“No one thinks you’re a liability,” Bucky interrupts. “Jesus, Barton. I don’t care if you need glasses to read. You still shoot like a maniac. You’re _fine_. No one’s going to retire you for something this insignificant, come on.”

“But you were acting weird when you saw me wearing them,” Clint says, frowning at him. “I thought…”

“What? No. I was acting weird because they turned me _on_ , not because I think you’re a liability,” Bucky says, his mouth working before his brain registers that he’s let the cat out of the bag.

Clint stares at him.

“Uh. I mean.” He scrambles for an excuse, but nothing comes to mind. He’s not sure he could pull off a lie anyway; that first comment had been far too obvious to be anything other than the truth, and Clint acts oblivious most of the time but he can smell bullshit a mile away.

Bucky remains painfully silent as Clint seems to process what he’s just blurted out, looking down at his hands like they’re going to save him from this mistake.

Clint’s the first to break the silence, when Bucky’s considering just getting up and running. “You like the glasses?”

“No,” he says weakly, and it’s clearly a lie.

“Huh,” Clint says. That’s his thoughtful voice, his _plotting_ voice, and Bucky doesn’t do a thing to counter it as Clint leans around the couch, shirt riding up to reveal a stripe of his achingly perfect abs. Getting old, Bucky’s ass.

When Clint turns back around, he’s wearing the glasses

Bucky swallows.

“Really?” The look on Clint’s face is slightly doubtful.

“Really,” Bucky admits, feeling the shame flare hot in his cheeks.

Clint tips his head to the side, watching Bucky the same way he watches the targets on missions. It’s calculated and a little dangerous and it does _not_ help the confused mess of emotions Bucky’s experiencing right now. He’s faintly craving the brainwashing chair, if just to erase this particular situation from his mind forever.

Whatever his face is doing, it’s not discouraging Clint. He’s actually getting _closer_ to Bucky, edging in until his knee touches Bucky’s hip, and Bucky looks away immediately.

Clint’s hand touches his face then, turning him back so they’re making eye contact and Bucky - the idiot that he is - lets him do it. He shouldn’t have because Clint’s eyes are intense even without the glasses, and _with_ them it’s a thousand times worse. The casual control certainly doesn’t help matters.

Bucky can’t stop the hard shiver that runs up his spine and Clint notices, his fingers tightening on Bucky’s jaw for a moment before letting go.

“This really does it for you?”

“It really does,” Bucky answers fervently.

Clint bites his lip for a moment and Bucky gets stuck watching that for a moment, the catch of his teeth and the pink of his mouth. It’s easier than meeting his eyes, but now it’s torturous in a different kind of way.

“Is it… _just_ the glasses?”

Bucky’s about to ask how the hell banging a single pair of glasses would work until he catches the flicker of insecurity in Clint’s eyes. He doesn’t think - hasn’t been thinking for a long time now - and reacts without reflecting on the consequences, leaning in to press his mouth to Clint’s.

Oh Jesus, what’s he doing?

He’s about to pull back when Clint starts kissing him back, fingers winding into his hair to pull him in the right direction, which is halfway on Clint’s lap. It’s a little clumsy - he nearly jabs his knee into Clint’s stomach, and he’s about to mumble an apology when Clint starts using his tongue and Bucky forgets how words work entirely.

They’re making out like teenagers. Forget getting old, he feels like it’s the thirties and he’s just discovered kissing for the first time. Bucky’s hands are clenched tight in Clint’s shirt and he can’t make himself let go. Clint’s free hand comes down to palm at his ass and Bucky moans, loud and embarrassing. It’s hard to be too self-conscious when all the nerves in his body are lighting up.

Eventually they’ve got to catch their breath, though. Clint looks a little dazed when Bucky lets him go. “I’m taking that as a no?”

Right. The glasses.

“I made Sam wear some to make sure,” Bucky says. “It’s you. It’s always you, it’s just… _worse_ when you’re wearing those.”

“Oh,” Clint says, some kind of wonder in his eyes behind the glasses as he draws Bucky in again.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle a book, but this is taking the procrastination a little far.”

Bucky feels slow, sluggish to drag his eyes (and mouth) away from Clint even as he realizes the trouble they’re in right now. Natasha’s standing in the doorway watching them, Yelena a few steps behind her with a faintly disgusted look on her face.

“I, uh,” Bucky says.

There’s no coming back from this. No defense. He’s regretting wearing these pants because his half-hard dick is definitely noticeable for everyone to see - it’s a little comforting to know Clint’s in the same state, but that won’t help their case.

Natasha points to the door. “I’ve put up with a lot of things from you two over the years, but you’re not having sex on my couch. Out.”

Clint rolls his eyes and gets out from under Bucky in a smooth move that he’s fairly sure he wouldn’t be able to replicate, offering a hand to help Bucky to his feet once he’s done. Bucky takes it, still a little out of it - his mind’s stuck replaying the last few minutes on repeat with no capacity for Natasha’s unimpressed stare and folded arms.

Luckily Clint’s thinking enough to herd him in the right direction, tugging him towards the door and offering a half-hearted apology to Natasha.

“Nice glasses,” Yelena comments as they’re squeezing past her, looking amused.

“Thanks,” Clint says. “Apparently they’re sexy.”

“ _Apparently_ ,” Bucky mutters disbelievingly, and Clint’s resulting laughter makes his heart beat a little faster.

It’s definitely not _just_ the glasses.

**Author's Note:**

> Winterhawk Bingo Square: Clint Wears Glasses


End file.
